Grand Rapids startup scene gets a boost from the Grand Angels

Grand Angels President Tim Parker was an executive for 17 years at Bissell Inc., the vacuum cleaner and floor-care manufacturing company.

Entrepreneurship in Grand Rapids gets a big helping hand and, more importantly, a lot of startup funding from the Grand Angels, an active network of angel investors founded in 2004 by prominent western Michigan banker Charles Stoddard.

Over the years, the Grand Angels has invested $22.6 million in 34 companies through 103 separate funding rounds as companies hit growth milestones. Last year, the Grand Angels, which has 44 active members, invested $3.65 million in 10 companies. In March, the group showed its geographic diversity by joining in an $8.2 million funding round for HistoSonics Inc., an Ann Arbor-based maker of ultrasonic medical devices aimed at shrinking or destroying cancer tumors.

What makes the Grand Angels unique among state angel groups, which include the Blue Water Angels in Midland, the Northern Michigan Angels in Traverse City and the Detroit-area Great Lakes Angels, is that in addition to a network of high-net-worth individuals who decide whether or not to join particular deals, the Grand Angels operates two venture-capital funds with limited partners, which allows for quicker decision making on would-be investments. The funds focus on life sciences, business-to-business technologies, advanced manufacturing and advanced agriculture.

The $3 million Grand Angels Venture Fund I is fully deployed. The Grand Angels Venture Fund II was launched with $7 million in 2015, the same year the Angel Resource Institute named the Grand Angels as one of the top three angel groups in the Great Lakes Region based on deal flow from 2010-2015.

The fund has closed on eight deals with plans for another handful. The Grand Angels expects to start raising a third and larger fund next year.

Jody Vanderwel, who had been an attorney at Herman Miller Inc., the Zeeland-based furniture maker, was recruited in 2005 to serve as president of the Grand Angels. Last June, she was named by Crain's as one of the 100 most influential women in Michigan.

She still serves on the board, but stepped down as president last November. She was replaced by Tim Parker, who was an executive for 17 years at Bissell Inc., the vacuum cleaner and floor-care manufacturing company based in the Grand Rapids suburb of Walker.

Michael Jandernoa, the former chairman and CEO of Allegan-based Perrigo Co., the nation's largest manufacturer and marketer of store-brand over-the-counter drug and nutritional products, is also on the Grand Angels' board.

Since 2011, Parker has run his own export and trading firm, Grand Rapids-based T.S. Parker Products LLC, which specializes in shipping Michigan fruit products to Asia.

"I saw there was an opening at the Grand Angels and I threw my resume to them on a whim," said Parker.

He said the Grand Angels likes to lead deals and typically invests $400,000 in a round.

"We prefer to lead the deals. We'll syndicate them. We'll bring in other angels and VC firms. One of my biggest delights is how collaborative everyone in the investing community is," he said.